


For Want Of A Nail

by prettybirdy979



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Loki Wins, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 06:57:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4091323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettybirdy979/pseuds/prettybirdy979
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...the war is lost. </p><p> </p><p>  <i>There is a world where the Avengers fall.</i><br/><i>...In this world, Loki rules.</i></p><p> </p><p>Matt and Foggy, however, bow to no man. Rebellion is more their style.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Want Of A Nail

**Author's Note:**

> For this [prompt](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/1742.html?thread=3349966#cmt3349966). 
> 
> ~~Unbetaed because I've never written a non-linear narrative before and I really want feedback on the format.~~ Betaed by Interrosand, thank you so much!

**Start**

There is a world where the Avengers fall.

Not together, but apart, as they had never quite managed to come together.

In this world Thor is destroyed first, his brother’s newest prisoner. Iron Man dies to destroy the armada but not before more than half has made it through. Hawkeye falls and no one catches him, Hulk being a half a world away by now.

Captain America and Black Widow vanish, with as many as they can take, when it is clear the battle cannot be won.

In this world, Loki rules.

 

 

**5.**

The Devils of Hell’s Kitchen they call them. They’re the only creatures who dare oppose the Earth’s new god and they wear all black. What else could they be but devils?

Matt always laughs when he hears the nickname. ‘There’s only one God,’ he says, ‘and that man isn’t it.’

‘If anything, _he’s_  the devil.’ One of the women, Claire, says. She followed Matt into the tunnels after one of his first missions and never left. She’s not the only one. Matt is good at inspiring people to follow him into the muck and making it seem like heaven.

It probably is heaven, compared to everything out there.

‘No.’ Matt shakes his head. ‘He’s just a man.’ Foggy can see people frowning and Matt must pick up on his worry because he adds. ‘You can’t defeat the devil. He’s a man, because he has to be a man. We _have_  to believe he’s a man because we are going to defeat him.’

Foggy always forgets his worries, when Matt talks like that. He forgets his fears over the logistics of feeding fifteen people and how their medical supplies are always running out and definitely forgets how insane this whole thing is… Because Matt is right. They are going to win this.

There’s nothing else they can do.

 

  
  
**10.**

‘Another stray, really?’ Foggy jokes as Matt leads in a young, blonde woman. ‘You really need to see someone about your habit of picking up beautiful women while fighting.’

The woman stares him down. ‘I followed him.’

Foggy shrugs. ‘They all do. Welcome to Hell, Miss…?’

‘Page. Karen Page.

 

 

**2.**

Foggy’s mother dies in the first assault. His father dies soon after, for refusing to bow to Loki’s men.

The rest of the family are scattered, either bowing or dead. He’s not sure. He barely cares.

He has Matt, liar that he is, and for now that’s enough.

 

 

**7.**

They move into a bigger tunnel eventually.

Actually it’s more a series of tunnels, complete with connecting rooms and homes. Some families have moved in, claiming the deepest and most hidden places as their children’s safe spaces. Their hospital is actually hidden right under the real one. Makes stealing supplies easier.

Most people of their rebellion have a space under New York that is _theirs_ , and they’re all well hidden and connected.

Matt and Foggy don’t. They move around a lot.

It’s safer.

~~Hell’s Kitchen no longer exists so where else would they call home anyway?~~

 

 

**12.**

 One of Claire’s boys, Santino, slams a piece of paper down on the table in their meeting room and begins to babble in frightened Spanish. Foggy looks at Matt for a translation.

‘There’s a price on our heads,’ Matt translates.

Foggy shrugs. ‘Nothing new. There’s been a price on our heads since the beginning.’

‘They want us alive,’ Matt continues and Foggy’s blood runs cold. _Alive_. Alive like Thor is, a symbol of the cruelty of the man they fight. Alive means an example.

Alive means they might lose their free will.

‘Then it’s clear then.’ Foggy’s quiet voice carries over the panic of his lieutenants. ‘We don’t let them take us alive.’

 

 

**4.**

It’s Matt’s idea to go after some of Loki’s human followers, the ones who still have free will. To scare them away or find out what they know so he can do _something_.

It’s Foggy’s idea for him to wear the black mask.

 

 

**9.**

Sometimes Matt comes back injured.

Sometimes Matt doesn’t come back when he’s supposed to.

But he always comes back.

One day he won’t though. Foggy knows this.

He wishes he didn’t.

 

 

**14.**

‘We don’t kill humans!’ Matt roars and half the people in the room instantly leave it as he enters, followed by an outraged Karen.

‘They’re working for _him_ , how can you even think that’s okay?’

Foggy sighs and goes to intervene. But Matt turns on Karen, sightless eyes boring into her. ‘It’s not. But _killing_  them isn’t an answer either. We have to be better than they are.’

‘And if we can’t be?’

Matt deflates. ‘Then why are we fighting?’

He leaves, the room silent in his wake.

 

 

**8.**

Matt thinks the shield is obnoxious. Foggy thinks that Matt can’t see the damned thing and so isn’t entitled to an opinion.

He _is_ right, but he’s still not entitled to an opinion. Not when he’s the one who dragged the stupid thing back in the first place. It does make a good decoration for their meeting room, a reminder of what happens if they don’t fight together. Maybe one day all that’s left of them will be this room with the relic that a soldier of a long ago war left behind when he fled this Hell.

But until that day, there’s something to fight for so they will fight.

 

 

**3.**

‘We have to do something.’ Matt paces up and down the warehouse they’re hiding in tonight, effortlessly avoiding the loose boards. He hasn't bothered to keep track of his cane, though Foggy has a spare folded up in his bag somewhere.

Foggy shrugs and pulls the blanket they stole from his home over himself. ‘What can we do? Most of the world is bowing to that monster.’

Matt turns back to him, eyes alight with a fire Foggy can’t feel. ‘Only most of it.’

 

 

**16.**

The raid by Loki’s forces takes Foggy by surprise.

One moment he’s waiting for Matt to return, the next there’s shouting and screaming as men with impossibly blue eyes invade the tunnel. Karen grabs his hand and pulls him down a side tunnel as some of Foggy’s people, Foggy’s soldiers, form a barrier before it.

‘No! We have to help-’

‘We can’t,’ Karen says gently as she pulls Foggy along while pulling out a gun with her other hand. ‘Or at least, you can’t. You’re too important.’

‘I’m not worth anyone else’s life.’

She shakes her head and pulls him down another tunnel. ‘You and Matt have no idea of your own value, do you? Without you _both_ , we’re dead. You’re worth more than _anything_.’

Foggy finds himself crying as he allows Karen to tug him away from the sounds of the dying.

 

 

**1.**

Luck saves them both.

They’re on their way to Foggy’s parents when the battle begins. Matt drags them into a hardware store where they hide with a bunch of others and try to wait the fighting out. He’s also the first one to realise it’s going badly and drags Foggy out of there again.

Somehow Foggy’s blind friend navigates the streets and avoids the _aliens_  (Chitauri they find out later and by then it’s practically a curse word) patrolling around, killing anything that moves.

‘How?’ Foggy asks after the third patrol. He’s seen a dozen people die and can’t stop  _shaking_.

‘Later.’ Matt says.

Later might mean never but Foggy takes it. It’s all he can do right now.

 

 

**11.**

‘Why do they always look to me?’ Foggy asks Matt one day, when they catch a moment alone together.

‘For what?’ Matt shuffles so his head is on Foggy’s chest instead of his shoulder, like he’s listening to his heartbeat. Not that he needs to be this close to do that but it’s comforting.

‘Ideas. Plans. Friendship. Reassurance. _Leadership_.’ Foggy shakes his head. ‘Everyone always looks to me for so much and I can’t figure out  _wh_ y.’

Matt sits up and makes Foggy meet his eyes. ‘Because you’re our _leader_  Foggy, of course they look to you.’ 

‘I am?’ Foggy considers his role in Matt’s rebellion. ‘Since when?’

The disbelief on Matt’s face would be amazing to look at any other time. ‘Since the beginning! You’re the one who got me to go underground instead of just trying to kill that arsehole. You’re the one who organised food for us, then for everyone else who followed me down. You plan our missions, figure out our battles and targets-’

‘But you’re the leader!’

Matt shakes his head. ‘I’m the inspiration, the icon they need. _You’re_  the leader, the man they _follow_.’ He looks down. ‘The man _I_  follow.’

 

 

**15.**

Matt’s drinking from a wine bottle when Foggy finds him. ‘Come to yell at me?’

Foggy snatches the bottle off him. ‘We’re fighting because we _have_  the free will to do so. We’re fighting because having free will is more important than anything else. We’re fighting because Loki is a man pretending to be a god that needs to be torn down. We’re fighting because Loki has made it so many people _can’t_  and we’re fighting in their place.’

There’s a long moment before Matt smiles. ‘That sounds familiar.’

‘Well, you’ve said all of it at some point. I do listen.’

He offers Matt his hand and Matt takes it. ‘Come on you, let’s get you cleaned up.’

‘Thank you,’ Matt whispers and he pulls Foggy into a hug. ‘Thank you.’ It’s clear he’s not thanking him for taking the bottle

‘Always welcome pal.’

 

 

**6.**

‘Foggy!’ Matt cries as he dashes into their warehouse, the rest of his mission team at his heels. Foggy looks up from where he’s been waiting for Matt’s return with the rest of their rebellion - all thirty people now, can you believe it? - and his eyes widen at the blood running down Matt’s head.

‘Matt!’ He races to Matt’s side, Claire by his side.

But Matt shrugs off his attention, instead pulling him into a hug and gripping at him tightly. ‘No, don’t. Foggy, he… he...’ Matt bites his lip, unable to continue.

‘Matt?’

One of Matt’s team steps forward and it’s only then Foggy notices they’re short at least three people. ‘We met Loki tonight.’ She pulls her mask up and meets Foggy’s wide eyes with her tear soaked ones. ‘He made us watch as he wiped Hell’s Kitchen off the map.’

‘ _What?_ ’

‘It’s gone,’ Matt says brokenly. ‘I _heard_ them all die. Foggy, it’s _gone_. There's nothing left.’

Foggy holds his friend and tries not to think about what that means.

 

 

**13.**

‘Matt?’

Matt doesn’t answer but he tilts his head, a clear signal he’s open to talking. Foggy sits down beside him. ‘Matt?’

‘I don’t know what to do,’ he whispers and Foggy realises his friend is crying. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

Of course. Matt is  _Catholic_ , how could that statement have not affected him. ‘I’m sorry abou-’

But Matt shakes his head. ‘It’s not that. Foggy, I nearly killed someone last night.’

Oh God, Matt. ‘I didn’t hear-’

‘I was alone. For just a few minutes. And this, this _man_ was there, and he was _free_. I could tell.’ Matt shrugs, feeling Foggy’s disbelieving glance. ‘Those who aren’t… they smell different. Sound different. Their heartbeats never pick up no matter how much they fight. I can tell. He was free.’

‘Monster,’ Foggy growls. The only things worse than Loki are those who follow him of their own free will.

Matt nods. ‘And I beat him for it. But for a moment… a long moment I wanted to kill him. Wanted to _destroy_  him, for his choices.’ He shakes his head. ‘Father Lantom forgave me for it but… I don’t want to be forgiven. I can’t be forgiven for this.’

Foggy pulls his friend into a hug. ‘Matt, I’m so sorry. But… it might come to that. It is war.’

‘I’m not a soldier.’

‘I know.’  _That’s what makes it worse,_  Foggy thinks but cannot say. Matt is not a soldier but he’s leading an army.

One day, in one way or another, it’s going to destroy him.

 

 

 **17.**  

‘I’m going to lead an assault on Loki’s palace.’ Matt declares. ‘‘It’s time we tear him down.’

His hand is on Foggy’s shoulder. Matt hasn’t stopped touching Foggy since he found him two hours ago. Foggy knows Matt returned to their last hideout and found what Loki’s forces left... and had feared the worse for hours.

Everyone is grumbling about the danger, waiting for Foggy to shoot Matt down.

They’re in for a surprise. ‘I agree.’ Foggy thinks of the people whose blood is now on his hands, from the always fighting Derek Hoffman and Chris Blake to the feisty but lovely Elena Cardenas. They all died so he might live and he’s going to damn well live for them.

Fight for them.

‘So here’s the plan.’

 

 

**End**

There is a world where Loki rules.

It is _not_ a world where Loki wins.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] For Want Of A Nail](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4130814) by [oakleaf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oakleaf/pseuds/oakleaf)




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